Pennyweka's surprise clearance may lead to race return
I went to a LIV Golf event in Adelaide last weekend: This is what I learned
One of the recent darlings of New Zealand racing could make an unexpected racetrack return next season.
But that will be up to whoever buys two-time Oaks winner Pennyweka when she is sold in Sydney next week.
The winner of last season’s New Zealand Oaks and then the ATC Oaks, Pennyweka was retired last October after experiencing throat issues.
The four-year-old was first found to have an entrapped epiglottis, a not uncommon issue that is often fixed by a quick lasering surgery which was performed on Pennyweka.
Owner-breeder Jim Wallace says Pennyweka continued to experience throat issues so the decision was taken to retire her and she was sent to Australia to be let down and prepare for next week’s elite Chairman’s Sale run by Inglis.
It was during that process a potential buyer doing due diligence on Pennyweka asked if they could have their veterinarian do an endoscopic examination of her throat and airways, standard practice for many horses sold at thoroughbred sales.
“Royston Murphy from Sledmere Stud, who is preparing her for next week, told us and we agreed to get a scope done on her and put it in the repository at the sales so everybody who was interested could get their vets to view it,” explains Wallace.
He didn’t expect what happened next.
“The vet doing the examination said ‘this horse has no throat issues’ and would be a Grade 1 [near perfect] or at worst borderline Grade 2 [no major issues] on her scope.
“His suggestion was she is over whatever mechanical issues she was having in her throat last year and could go back into training.”
Wallace was so taken aback by the result that he sent the footage to renowned Sydney vet Chris Lawler who told Wallace the same thing.
So rather than being sold as a broodmare prospect only next week Pennyweka will now be sold as a “racing and breeding proposition”, which should enormously increase her value.
It means whoever buys her has the option to put her back into work, anywhere in the world, and race her, an option made even more attractive not only because of her talent but the fact her Oaks wins qualify her for some of the biggest Cups races.
“We were really surprised so I rang the syndicate who raced her and told them but everybody was very realistic about her future,” says Wallace.
“We have gone so far down the path of this sales process now she will still be sold if she reaches the right money but she is definitely being sold as both a racing and breeding prospect.”
While the Australian thoroughbred marketplace is speed-crazy, mares such as Pennyweka, two-time Group 1 winners who are only four, are rarely sold as racing and breeding prospects so her price will now be even more interesting.
Her case also shines some light on the public auction of elite race mares at a time when champion sprinter Imperatriz is only weeks away from being offered for sale on the Gold Coast.
While Te Akau boss David Ellis wants Imperatriz to be sold as a breeding proposition only, the sales company representatives spoken to by the Herald say that is nearly impossible to enforce.
Whoever buys horses at a public auction can do whatever they want with them after as long as it conforms to the Rules of Racing and horse welfare.
“We are selling her to be a broodmare but yes, I suppose that is technically very hard to control,” says Ellis.
“But I doubt with a mare worth as much as Imperatriz is that whoever buys her will be wanting to race her as she has nothing left to prove after 10 Group 1s and her foals will be worth a fortune.”.
The vet said ‘this horse has no throat issues’ and would be a Grade 1 [near perfect] or at worst borderline Grade 2 [no major issues] on her scope.
Owner-breeder Jim Wallace
The LIV Golf League has had its detractors who oppose the music blaring during play, the reduced three rounds of action, shotgun starts, the team aspect and the controversial Saudi Arabian backers. But they can’t argue with its success, luring an impressive line-up of golf stars away from the PGA Tour.
“Golf but louder” is the LIV Golf tagline. “Zip it” is written on the paddles held by volunteers at LIV Golf Adelaide, to ensure fans are quiet during a player’s backswing (standard at golf tournaments) as music thumps from speakers a few metres away (not so standard at golf tournaments).
Herein lies the contrasts behind making a golf event more entertaining. Augusta meets Coachella.
From the rebel league’s inception three years ago, traditional golf fans weren’t keen on the noise LIV Golf was making. Most of that came from the loud chatter the money was making with the likes of already multi-millionaire world No 1 Jon Rahm taking a reported $970 million to lure him away from the PGA Tour.
LIV Golf has plenty of detractors — the loudest being columnists and writers like myself who want to make the point that it seems wrong these players are being paid an obscene amount of money, out of the Saudia Arabia Public Investment Fund, to play in a three-round format that has disrupted the fabric of professional golf.
There was hope the rift between the two tours would be fixed when it was announced last June that they were merging, but according to recent reports, little progress has been made.
So as it stands, the best golfers in the world remain split across two different tours, which then meet four times a year at the majors.
LIV Golf has 14 events in its slate but no country has been more welcoming than Australia, a golf-mad nation starved of star-quality tournaments. Last year, LIV Adelaide was a huge success, rated among the players as the best tournament of the year, highlighted by the hundreds of plastic cups that lay around the stadium par-three 12th hole following Chase Koepka’s hole-in-one, the first ace in LIV history. Capacity for the event was increased by 50 per cent this year, with more than 35,000 attending each day across the three rounds. Many hospitality areas such as the stands surrounding the 12th, dubbed the Watering Hole, sold out quickly, while hosting music performances after all three rounds added a younger audience and festival atmosphere.
It would be wrong to judge the tour based on the fervour the Adelaide event creates.
LIV Adelaide is the peak of the LIV Golf tour; what organisers would love all 14 events to be. I doubt the likes of Jeddah or Singapore get as rowdy as the huge galleries seen following Aussie star Cam Smith across all three days at The Grange Golf Club. Golf fans in Adelaide showed their opinion with their feet — and their wallets. They turned up and showed out. Many were decked out in LIV Golf merchandise, not bothered by any negatives about the tour, they simply just wanted to see golf stars doing amazing things on a golf course. And for the most part, the players delivered.
Relatively unknown American Brendan Steele won after total unknown Jinichiro Kozuma led on day one. None of the big names of LIV such as Rahm, Dustin Johnson, Bryson DeChambeau, Smith or Phil Mickelson were in serious contention for the individual title, until Rahm made a brief run late on Sunday — but that didn’t seem to matter.
It must be noted my flights and accommodation were paid for by LIV Golf, and I admit I drank a few Solos from the media centre.
When you’re in that position as a journalist, you must remain critical and fair in coverage but it’s hard to find a huge aspect of the event to critique. It has been a roaring success for Adelaide and should only get bigger.
That’s partly because golf is riding a new high post-Covid, with casual players dusting off the old clubs and young people jumping on board with the disposable income that would have been used on an OE put on isolation hold.
Netflix series Full Swing also played a part in attracting a wider audience to the sport, but unlike Formula One’s appeal on the back of Drive to Survive, golf is not really a global sport in terms of attending events, when you factor in that three of the four majors are played in the USA — along with the Players Championship and the FedEx Cup, the biggest events outside of the majors. In this part of the world, if you want to see the likes of Scottie Scheffler or Collin Morikawa, you need to fly to Greensboro, North Carolina or Dublin, Ohio. Outside the Presidents Cup, which returns to Melbourne in 2028 and 2040, top golfers rarely make the trip to Australia, with the local tournaments running during the small off-season.
And this is why Adelaide has jumped at the LIV event.
It appears it has paid off for the city. It was no doubt the talk of the town, taking a brief mark beside the AFL on Friday night, with the Port Adelaide Power hosting St Kilda. You couldn’t walk around the city without noticing the LIV event was on. Thousands came from out of state, around 40 per cent of fans, some flying in and out on the same day.